


Enough

by coffee_mage



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: M/M, Slice of Life, references to Children's Crusade, references trauma, sort of stream of consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 13:51:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffee_mage/pseuds/coffee_mage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There were nights where Billy woke up screaming at the top of his lungs but he wasn’t actually making a sound.  His throat would be dry, ragged, as if he really had been screaming, but the house was silent and no one else so much as stirred. </i>
</p>
<p>Sometimes, you have to make do and let it be enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough

There were nights where Billy woke up screaming at the top of his lungs but he wasn’t actually making a sound. His throat would be dry, ragged, as if he really had been screaming, but the house was silent and no one else so much as stirred. Maybe he was screaming, but he’d silenced it somehow. He wasn’t sure. He never knew. He never would know. Unless he set up a video camera. He thought about doing that sometimes, but couldn’t decide what would be more terrifying, making a sound no one else could hear or not making any sound at all, so he didn’t. Better to have a quantum scream than find out.

On those nights, Billy lay flat on his back in the dark, staring at the ceiling as the light changed and the sun rose. There was no sleep after the screaming silence. It almost got capital letters in his head. The Screaming Silence. It would be a good name for a band, he sometimes thought, in those dark moments where his ceiling started to turn grey instead of black and his breathing finally started to even out, hours and hours after he woke. He’d almost laugh, then, at his joke, because other than laughing, what could he do? He was helpless in the dark, in the silence. There was nothing he could do. But he couldn’t laugh either, because if he made a sound, he’d know, either way, if he could hear his voice. And it was terrifying, the idea that he couldn’t hear himself. It left him shaking, trembling under his covers like he’d stayed up past his bedtime to watch horror movies. Better not to know, to have some hope that he could hear himself, to believe maybe, if he had to, he would be able to save himself, stop whatever it was that came along next.

He didn’t know what it would be, that came next, but he knew it would come. It always came. There was no escaping it. Eli might think he could retire, escape, but there was no retiring, no getting out. Billy had been stupid to run away, to retreat into his own mind while things kept happening and the world kept ending and being saved, over and over. How could Billy stay out of the fight? From the moment he, Teddy and Eli had crashed through that window and met Kate, they were condemned to fight. This was their life now and Eli could run, but Billy knew it would catch up to him again. It always would. They’d be lucky to survive until college, really. The Young Avengers didn’t exactly have good survival stats.

Billy’s mother was getting on his and Teddy’s cases about college and she didn’t understand why Billy wasn’t interested. Why would he be, when he knew what his future held already? A lifetime of fighting, all because of choices he’d made when he was too naive and stupid to understand them. At least she wasn’t poking at Tommy. Billy wasn’t sure if he could take the arguing and complaining and full-scale rebellion that would come about if that ever happened. On the other hand, no one ever seemed to expect anything real from Tommy and Billy wondered what would happen if someone did. What few expectations anyone did place on him were in the heart of battle and he’d never really failed any of them, had he? Maybe it would be worth it. Or maybe Tommy would shake to pieces and take them all down with him. There were fewer of them now, not a lot of people to cover you or watch your back. Only he, Tommy, Teddy and Kate left. Better to leave it.

And so, once again, Billy stared at the ceiling, the silence screaming around him. Then a click, in the silence. A sound. Billy was on his feet in an instant, whetting his lips with his tongue, hands coming up, ready to start casting if he had to. The crack around his door glowed, then another click and it went dark. Someone using the toilet, then. Sure enough, at the edges of his hearing, Billy detected a trickle, then he recoiled on the flush. The silence was officially broken. Click, glow, the creak of a floorboard, getting closer, then a tap on the door that had Billy’s head reeling. 

“Yes?” Billy said, voice unsteady, scratchy from the screaming. It was jarring, hearing it, knowing that he could hear it.

Billy’s door opened and Teddy’s face appeared. “Hey… Uh… You up?” he asked.

Billy looked at him. “Lessee. Two feet on the ground. Standing by my door.”

“Nightmare?”

Billy shrugged. “Nah.”

“Liar. What was it?”

“Nothing.”

“All right,” Teddy said easily, though he watched Billy suspiciously. “Mind if I lay down. Can’t sleep.”

“What’s wrong?” Billy asked, looking Teddy over as he opened the door wider and let the taller boy in.

Teddy shrugged in an almost exact mimicry of Billy’s shrug from a moment before. It always creeped Billy out a little when Teddy did that. Teddy always said it wasn’t his fault. He figured it was a side effect of his shapeshifting and he never meant to do it. It was worse when he was tired.

“I guess you can stay here,” Billy said, closing the door behind Teddy. “I’ll set the alarm so Mom doesn’t catch you.” He went over to the clock. 

“Thanks,” Teddy said softly. “I just needed to know you were okay.”

Billy nodded as he set the alarm to go off before anyone else in the household would wake up. “I’m fine, you know.”

For a moment, Teddy looked incredibly tired as he climbed into Billy’s bed, taking his place next to the wall. “Yeah. I know.” He arranged the covers, then flipped them back, making space for Billy on the narrow bed. “I just needed to make sure.”

Billy sighed as he climbed in next to Teddy, snuggling into Teddy’s side and pulling up the blankets. He settled, head on Teddy’s shoulder and one hand resting gently on Teddy’s stomach, where he made small circular motions. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just lay there, listening to Teddy’s heartbeat. Teddy was alive. Teddy was safe. They were free. Everything was fine. He closed his eyes.

Teddy squeezed Billy gently. “I love you,” he murmured.

Billy smiled. “I love you too.” And maybe that didn’t fix anything. Maybe it couldn’t bring Cassie and Jonas back or make it so Nate wouldn’t ever be Kang. Maybe it didn’t change the past. It probably couldn’t even change the future. But for one moment, laying in the dark in the smallest bedroom of an NYC condo, Teddy wrapped around him, Billy could let himself believe that love was enough.


End file.
